Intense vs. Passive Baseball Coaches

Brooks Bryant — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:40:03 -0500

There are two kinds of baseball coaches, each using a different style to achieve the same goal.

Nobody likes the demand, “Get on the line," a command a coach yells at his players to do countless numbers of sprints as a consequence for goofing off, dropping a ball, or striking out. Most everyone would prefer to be pulled aside by their coach and have him explain what was done wrong, and how to improve next time.

Although this may be true, there are many advantages to being screamed at by your coach. For many players, an intense style of coaching brings out the best in them. However, such behavior makes some players overly stressed, causing their performance to suffer.

Some coaches believe it is best to manage their players passively and stress free. Other coaches believe that in order to get the most out of his players, they must be intense, demanding, and strict. There are many advantages and disadvantages to both coaching methods. Every coach tries to get the same result: winning and making his players better. However, the way they go about achieving this common goal varies.

Intense coaches demand focus all the time. If a player forgets what to do in a certain situation, an intense coach will yell, scream, and demand a better performance by making the player run countless sprints.

A passive coach will take the player aside and explain what he did wrong. The passive coach will make it easier on the player, but the player could forget about what he was just taught if he did not face severe consequences for his actions.

The result of an intense coach’s method in this scenario is that the player will never forget how he messed up again, but he will also be much more stressed to not make the same mistake, potentially causing him more errors in the future.

Intense coaches also have very different motivation methods than passive coaches. A passive coach might provide loving encouragements to the player, raising his self-esteem, making him more relaxed.

On the other hand, an intense coach will yell, scream, and be destructive in order to motivate his players. This past summer, my AAU coach was very intense. He did anything to motive us, including smashing chairs over the bench in frustration. Before a game, my team had a terrible warm-up. Goofing off constantly, we weren’t focused or ready to play our upcoming game.

One of my teammates was sitting in a chair. My coach demanded him to get up from the plastic chair. He then proceeded to use all of his 250 pounds of muscle to entirely smash that plastic chair into a million pieces. Immediately following this, my entire team got pumped. We went back into the outfield to warm up again and we had one of our best warm-ups ever. This resulted in an 8-0 shutout in our favor against one of the best teams in the league. A passive coach would have allowed a terrible warm-up, and that lackadaisical play would have resulted in a loss.

In baseball, offseason training is a significant part of becoming a better team. If a team does not have any offseason workouts, their performance will suffer in the early weeks of spring. Teams managed by passive coaches will simply “go through the motions” during the offseason.

They will not have any intensity, lacking anticipation for the upcoming season. Conversely, teams run by intense coaches will be more prepared and excited for the upcoming season. A team that plays in January the same way that they play in June will definitely have more success that a passive team.

At the end of each year, my team has about two weeks off before tryouts start. Subsequently after tryouts, strength and conditioning starts. This is the most important part of the offseason, and many teams run by passive coaches simply ignore the training. Passive coaches will make sure that during the off-season none of their players get hurt. They will use this time as more of a break as opposed to getting better and improving the team.

When I was younger, I played for a different AAU team before I switched organizations to my current one. Managed by a very relaxed and passive coach, everyone was stress free and had a great time. That year, playing baseball had never been so much fun. During practice we told jokes, tried out ridiculous plays, and messed around. We ended the season with a great record, however, this was only because of the overwhelming amount of talent we had.

During our national tournament, we were projected to come in the top 10 in the country. Instead, we were not prepared and came in 33rd of 90 teams. If I could describe that year with one word it would be: laughing. I had so much fun with my team and I loved my coach. We did not perform as well as we should have, but we had fun.

Relaxed players play better—perfect practice makes perfect. These two contradicting ideas represent the difference in passive coaches and intense coaches. There have been studies that prove that if a player is more relaxed, he will play better. Also, it is known that if a coach trains his players harder and drills into them the right way to play, as well as the wrong way to play, they will play the right way. Both styles of coaching have positives as well as negatives; however, if one looks at who coaches in the major leagues, he will find that almost all of the major league coaches are intensive. The smart player will combine both coaching styles—intense training, and relaxed playing.

Oakland Athletics: Doing it Right

Brooks Bryant — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 11:34:55 -0400

The Oakland Athletics are the best baseball organization in the MLB. They do everything right, with a very low payroll. Everyone always wonders how each year (with the exception of this year) they are contending for the playoffs. Two word: Billy Beane. The best GM in baseball (ahead of Theo Epstein only because of the payroll difference). How does he manage to put together a solid, winning ball team each year, with such horrible funds??????

He gets bargin players. He treats MLB players like a day-trader treats stocks: Gets them at low price, and sells them for short profits. Here is how he does it: OBP, OPS, no SB's, no giving up outs (as some would call sacrifice bunts), and pitching his best pitchers out of the bullpen when the game is on the line, not when they are winning by 3 runs in the 9th inning.

Billy Beane creates closers. He will make a closer out of somebody, while still paying that person the minimal salary. He will collect about 30 saves, and many GM's will say that 30 saves means he is a good closer. Thus, he will probably also end up with about a 4 era, but his trade value will still be as high to get a great SP or a very under-rated player who gets on base a lot without taking up a lot of money.

He did a study with his assistant, Paul Depodesta, on what statistics produce runs, and essentially wins. They found nothing in SB's or sacrifices, what many people would call managers who do this, "aggressive." Billy Beane would call this behavior, "ape like." And he is correct. The two statistics that led to runs were: OBP and Slugging %.

But it just got better for Billy Beane. He then realized that no one else valued OBP and Slugging as high as he did. So he would be able to get these on base machines for minimal value. If you look can find "Win Shares,"* look at the players with the most W.S (who are not Albert Pujols, not all-stars, but regulars), and find the # of walks that player drew. You will be amazed.

Paul Depodesta then created the stats known as OPS. Combining OBP and Slugging %, he found the best players avalible for cheap price. Paul Depodesta had a proposition that he presented to Billy Beane: He calculated that OBP was worth roughly 3 times more than slugging %. Everyone in baseball thought he was out of his mind. Everyone but Mr. Beane. He bought it, and went on to having his ball club become one of the superior teams in the MLB for many years to come.

And that, my friends, is how the Oakland Athletics were built, and become a very good baseball team. The bad thing for the A's, is that now, many teams are catching on, like the Boston Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians. The Red Sox do everything the A's do, but with the second highest payroll in baseball. The Indians do what the A's do with a similar payroll. Just check out their closer, Joe Borowski. Look at his era, compared to his set up men's ERA's. But GM's still think Borowski can be valued very high because of the high amount of saves.

I hope you enjoyed this article.

- Brookseyyyyyyy

Bleacher Report - Articles by Brooks Bryant

Intense vs. Passive Baseball Coaches

Oakland Athletics: Doing it Right